


even your eyes glow, even at night

by LeilaKalomi



Series: a collection of first nights [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Anal Fingering, Ancient Rome, Aziraphale Has a Penis (Good Omens), Clothed Sex, Crowley Has a Penis (Good Omens), Crowley's Sunglasses (Good Omens), First Kiss, First Time, Frottage, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Scene: Rome 41 AD (Good Omens), Pre-Arrangement (Good Omens), Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:04:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24474712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeilaKalomi/pseuds/LeilaKalomi
Summary: The aftermath of their trip to Petronius's restaurant. Oysters are an aphrodisiac, after all.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: a collection of first nights [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1767751
Comments: 10
Kudos: 148
Collections: Ixnael’s Recommendations, Promptposal





	even your eyes glow, even at night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [waterofthemoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterofthemoon/gifts).



> This is the first work in a short series of smutty second parts to scenes from canon. Each work is completely independent and should be read as part of a separate universe.

No one had warned Aziraphale how lonely it is in Rome.

Although really, it’s lonely most everywhere he goes. It’s just a state of being at this point.

It isn’t completely clear to him why it seems so much worse here. Maybe it’s the way the city thrives and bustles that makes him feel set so far apart. Or the way cruelty has been written right into the city’s customs and laws: the slaves fighting in the Colosseum, the treatment of the women, the political backstabbing.

He _shouldn’t_ be surprised to find Crowley here. He _is_ a demon after all. Aziraphale shouldn’t be surprised, but he is, because he’d long since understood that Crowley isn’t exactly a typical demon. (Not that Aziraphale has ever actually met any others.) And because if Aziraphale’s information is correct, Caligula is dead, or will be soon.

* * *

Crowley is tired of taking the blame for all the shit the humans come up with. All the nonsense and cruelty and death and disaster. That’s all meant to be him? He hates it. He’d started assuming it was the other side for a while there. After that whole business at Sodom and that whole business with the flood and all, he’d struggled a bit with the definition of Evil. Was he supposed to think those things were bad because he was Evil, and those things were Good?

But that seemed mad to him. And the angel didn’t seem to think those things were Good either. He seemed just as confused as Crowley, only more afraid, like he didn’t want to admit it.

Crowley should have been annoyed with him for his cowardice, but he remembered doing a million-mile per hour deep dive into a pool of boiling sulfur, and, well, he felt a little bit more forgiving. Especially after Hell had sent him to oversee... _that_. He was definitely in no position to judge. So in Rome, he lets the angel’s joy wash over him, shares his ale with him, and follows him when he leaves the taverna to sample the famous oysters at Petronius’s restaurant.

He doesn’t want to go back to the palace. Not after what they’d done. Hell would give him credit, sure. But he wishes he didn’t have to take it.

* * *

Aziraphale doesn’t want Crowley to go back to wherever he’d been staying. It’s obvious Crowley doesn’t want to. The way he’s dressed marks him as a foreigner, a dignitary of some kind—maybe one favored by Caligula based on the laurels—and they keep getting odd looks, which Aziraphale hates. He wants to ask Crowley about it, wants to know if he’d been summoned to the palace, if it had been humans or Hell to orchestrate finishing off the Emperor...but the restaurant just isn’t very... _private_.

“Come home with me?” he suggests. He tells himself it’s an impulsive request; he tells himself he’s not desperate for Crowley to agree, even though the evening will end if he doesn’t. The humans are loud and on their worst behavior. It’s making them both a little ill (or maybe it’s the oysters). It shouldn’t bother Crowley, but it’s so obvious that it does.

“Yeah,” says Crowley. “All right.”

* * *

Aziraphale is kind. He’s snippy and a little bit smug and self-righteous, but he doesn’t want to _hurt_. He wants to be happy, wants to share it with someone. It almost does hurt, though, to see it, the way the light shines out of his eyes, so desperate for somewhere to land. In this cruel place, Crowley can’t tell him no. Not to the drink, not to the oysters, not to the trip to wherever it is he is staying.

“It’s lovely to see you here,” Aziraphale says, as they wind through the narrow roads. It’s dark, but it’s clear and unseasonably warm, and there are still people about, some of them casting odd looks at Crowley, and _yes, yes_ , he _knows_ what he must look like, marked like this with these stupid laurels as _Caligula’s_. Big whopping sign of favor now. He should probably have thrown them off ages ago, but he’d forgotten they were there. Aziraphale is asking him about it, or trying to without words, and Crowley doesn’t know how to answer him, how to explain.

“It’s good to see you here too, angel,” he says instead. He watches Aziraphale’s mouth drop open slightly, watches him look away as if it had not.

“Here we are,” Aziraphale says as they approach a fashionable, if smallish, domus. Most residences this size would have servants about, even at this hour, but it’s empty when they enter. They are not people, so it doesn’t seem to occur to Aziraphale to offer him a bed for the night. Instead, he leads them to a couch in the dining area and adjusts the screens blocking the entrance.

“Just in case,” he says. His voice is soft and gentle, and Crowley feels something skitter across his skin at the words, like a lighting charge.

“Angel?”

Aziraphale reaches up and touches the laurels, the little curls like a woman’s that adorn only his forehead. His fingers are cool, and Crowley shivers. But his smile is thoughtful, indulgent.

“Tell me what you’ve come for, Crowley. Tell me what you’ve done.”

* * *

Crowley is kind. He’s sharp and cutting and maybe even bitter, but there isn’t anything actually evil about him, and Aziraphale is certain he’s seen him show compassion and consideration. Even courtesy.

Still, Aziraphale is alarmed at the way Crowley’s face crumbles at his words.

“What?” Crowley chokes out. “What I’ve—you heard? And you think I—”

“No. No, Crowley. I didn’t think you would do something like that. It’s why I’m asking you. You’re quite obviously upset. I want to know what happened to upset you. I want to know what they asked you to do, and I want to know what you did.”

Crowley stares down at his hands.

“He was awful, Aziraphale.”

“I know.”

“He didn’t need me to make him any worse.”

“Oh, _Crowley_.” Crowley isn’t looking up at Aziraphale. At this angle, the glasses he’s wearing do a poor job of hiding his expression, and Aziraphale can see that his face is tight, his eyes nearly closed. Hesitantly, he rests a hand on the demon’s shoulder. They do not generally discuss work, do not generally behave in such a familiar way. Crowley twitches at the touch, and then his hand reaches up and rests over Aziraphale’s.

“Come, let’s sit down,” Aziraphale says. He takes Crowley’s hand and directs him to sit beside him on the couch.

“He’s dead,” Crowley says. Aziraphale sighs and rests a hand on Crowley’s back. Crowley leans against him. He looks weak and tired, like Aziraphale feels.

“I know,” Aziraphale says. “I daresay all of Rome knows by now.”

“And you?”

Aziraphale hesitates, because this does become the sticky part.

“Heaven asked me to...meet with Chaerea,” Aziraphale admits. He presses his eyes closed in shame. “Though I never asked him to kill anyone, certainly.”

“I met with him too,” Crowley says. “Hell. They wanted a coup. Any kind of coup at all, I think. I stayed at the palace for a week _establishing_ myself. Just trying to be heard. That’s why all the—” he gestures at his clothing. “I didn’t tell them to do it. But I wonder if I should have.”

He turns to look at Aziraphale, and the glasses no longer seem like an accessory or an article of clothing, so much as an impediment.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says. “Would you take off those glasses? Even with the rest of your...ensemble, they’re quite a noticeable affectation.”

“Any more noticeable than my eyes?” Crowley snaps, knocking the glasses from his face, letting them clatter to the marble floor. But he doesn’t move away even though Aziraphale’s thigh is pressed against his, even though Aziraphale’s hand is still tracing gentle circles onto his back through the rough cloth of his tunic.

“Your eyes are lovely,” Aziraphale says, and kisses him.

* * *

Crowley gasps the moment that Aziraphale leans in, the moment his intentions become clear. Crowley reaches out and grabs him then, before their lips meet, pulling him closer. His tunic is softer than Crowley’s, and beneath his toga, it’s thin and loose enough that Crowley can feel the shape of him beneath it, the way his skin is warm and pliable. The angel is kissing him. It isn’t that Crowley is surprised by the notion. He’d thought of it often enough, vaguely, in the abstract. But the _reality_ , the truth of it...

“Aziraphale,” he chokes out when Aziraphale pulls back. Aziraphale lifts off the ridiculous laurels in response. Crowley knocks them from his hand to the floor before reaching for him again. “Please,” he says again, not knowing, not understanding exactly what it is he’s asking for.

“You are so very lovely,” Aziraphale says. “I don’t approve of the tunic at all. It stands out too much. But the color is very flattering.” He traces a finger down Crowley’s front, not stopping at his waist, dragging it instead right over his cock. Crowley shudders, breathing hard, then pushes Aziraphale back onto the couch, bracing himself on his arms as he comes down on top of him.

“You look good,” he whispers grinding his pelvis against Aziraphale’s. “You look really good. So lush. All white and gold.”

Aziraphale’s hand comes up behind his head, slides down his back, hitching up his tunic to caress bare flesh. It stills Crowley instead of arousing him further, makes him want to burrow into the angel, makes him want to be held. He whines helplessly as he turns his head into Aziraphale’s neck, nudging his nose into his throat. He feels Aziraphale shift beneath him, his legs shaking as they part, his whole body wriggling as Crowley undulates against him. “You’re so good,” Crowley says, his voice strangled.

“You’re good too, aren’t you?” Aziraphale says. “Not what Heaven calls good. Actually, truly good. That’s the big secret you’re afraid for anyone to know. But I’ve found you out.”

Crowley gasps at the realization. As with the kiss, it’s not so much the words but that the angel would say them. Not so much the substance of what he’d said but that he should find it inside of him to express it. Crowley’s hips move now, unbidden, and he can feel that Aziraphale is hard beneath him. His hands stroke lightly over the exposed skin of Crowley’s backside, so gentle. Crowley rocks against him again for friction, feeling the give of his soft flesh, the nudge of Aziraphale’s cock against his own. Aziraphale gasps, and his breath flows through Crowley’s hair, making him sigh.

“That’s it,” Aziraphale whispers. “Let go.” So Crowley does it again.

* * *

Crowley’s skin is hotter than Aziraphale had imagined it would be. After all, he’s slim and fine-boned, Aziraphale had thought him cold-blooded, and it is winter. But Crowley’s body is as warm as Aziraphale’s—or more so—and Aziraphale cannot resist moving further down onto the couch to situate himself more fully beneath him, trying to wedge as much of himself as possible under the demon’s warmth. The heat of him does not feel like an infernal thing, but something human, and this knowledge seems both urgent and intimate. Aziraphale had been alone for such a very long time.

They do not talk about their jobs because ostensibly, their roles are opposite. What would be the good of discussing your plans with someone who would only thwart them? But if they don’t talk, there is no one else they can talk to. It had been only eight years since they’d seen each other this time, and Aziraphale remembers the demon in the desert at Golgotha, her hair blown out behind her as she grieved the results of the Almighty’s whims at Aziraphale’s side. They were the same, he had realized then, not opposite at all, and not a day had passed since then that Aziraphale had not wanted to share that revelation with Crowley. And now here he is, and Aziraphale finds that this, still, is not close enough.

Crowley thrusts again and again, brushing his clothed penis against Aziraphale’s. Aziraphale’s head feels a bit light, and he holds on, trailing his fingers over warm, bare buttocks, dipping them between, finding a hot, pulsing opening there.

Crowley moans loudly and spreads his legs. His thrusts come harder, and Aziraphale lifts his own hips to meet them. There is oil in the kitchens, and Aziraphale miracles it onto his fingers, slides it against the tight ring of flesh at his fingertips, working gently until his fingertip slips in, pressing deeper as Crowley thrusts back against his hand, forward against his cock, his spine arching. Aziraphale wishes he had raised his own tunic, but he has not, and now he has no wish to pause the proceedings.

When his finger is all the way inside Crowley, the demon’s lovely eyes go wide, and Aziraphale catches his chin, pulling him in for a kiss that Crowley breaks only to lick at his neck, and Aziraphale loses his vision, feels everything in his abdomen go tight, and then it’s wet between them, the fabric of Aziraphale’s tunic drenched in both of their spend when Crowley goes rigid in his arms and collapses against him, murmuring “Angel, angel” over and over.

It’s not enough; it will never be enough, not when there is so much more than fabric between them, so much they can never cast aside.

So Aziraphale cleans them up and holds him, keeping watch until the dawn. It’s what angels do.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi and follow me on tumblr [@leilakalomi](https://leilakalomi.tumblr.com).


End file.
